Purpose / Use cases

We require the Velodyne driver to be able to interface with a ROS-based system.

Design

These nodes are specializations of the UdpDriver, composed with the Vlp16Translator.

Specifically, these specializations are for the sensor_msgs::msg::PointCloud2 message type which is intended for widespread use and visualization, but not in high performance or safety-critical settings.

The purpose of these nodes are to convert Udp packets from a VLP16 HiRes sensor into ROS 2 messages.

Assumptions / Known limits

Assumes input on some UDP port from a Velodyne sensor.

For the VelodyneCloudNode, it is assumed that the PointCloud2 message is at least larger than velodyne_driver::Vlp16Translator::POINT_BLOCK_CAPACITY, which is 512.

Inputs / Outputs / API

Input:

• UDP packets from a VLP-16 LiDAR sensor

Output:

• PointCloud2 message

Security considerations

These nodes inherit all security flaws and capabilities inherent in the UDP driver, Node, and Vlp16Translator.

Future extensions / Unimplemented parts

This node should eventually have health topic publishers and command subscribers for fusion coordination.

Related issues

• #4 - Implement velodyne driver